Editorial: Random
thoughts at 3 AM
College Football vs.
Pro Football, players having off the field issues, no point to pre-season
polls, Chad Ocho Cinco, and Anti-Buckeye sentiment.
By Bill Smith
- Why is
college football better than pro football?
In college ball, we cheer for our
alma mater. Many of us spent several
years and much of our parents' retirement savings attending the
university. If that experience was a
pleasant one, we savor memories of people and places there.
In pro football, we cheer for
laundry—that's right laundry. When a
team like the Browns wears those brown pants or heaven forbid, those pumpkin
orange pants, it gets harder. But we
cheer for laundry none the less. If you
doubt that, consider the poster child for laundry—Bret Favre. He didn't become
a free agent in search of the all mighty dollar. He didn't want to go to New York.
He was exiled. As much as he was
loved in Green Bay,
do you really think that die hard cheese heads would hope that he would come in
an beat the Pack? Of course not. That's because pro fans cheer for laundry.
- Why are
so many pro and college football players getting in trouble when baseball
players don't seem to have the same percentage of problems?
When all star player John Kruk was
asked about his more than abundant size for an athlete, he responded “we're not
athletes. We're baseball players.” Baseball and other college and professional
athletes don't carry the reputation that football players at both levels
do.
The only way to survive playing a
sport as violent and physical as football is to develop an attitude of
invincibility. That attitude generates a
reputation. The reputation generates
challenges by those that want to prove they are tough too.
The attitude also tends to dull the
sense of danger. They tend to ignore
that voice in the back of reason that prevents most of us from being at a club
at 3 AM. They just are not as sensitive
to danger and not as careful choosing friends/associates.
- What is
the point of preseason college football polls?
If you need any proof that
pollsters are not experts in evaluating college football teams, just review the
number of teams that were ranked 1 or 2 in the last 4 weeks of the 2007
season. The only good thing that the
polls accomplish is to irritate fans of teams that are not ranked in the top
10. The bad part is that an unranked
team that is much better than expected can never work their way into the
Championship game. The polls should
start in the 5th week of the season. That way we know that Clemson
is not a top 10 team and can put them where they belong.
- The NFL
should fine Chad
Ocho Cinco $100,000 for pure stupidity and change his number to 13.
- The
anti-Buckeye attitude of polsters should be protested by all right
thinking people.
When the Bills made it to 4
straight Super Bowls only to lose, they were celebrated for their consistent
excellence. It has never been done
since. Since there are only 32 pro teams
and 110 schools in the level formerly know as Division 1A, OSU's participation
in 2 straight Championship games is a greater accomplishment. That is particularly true given the fact that
they were not at all expected to be there last year.
This team is much better than last
year's Buckeye team. When we beat the
over hyped and much loved USC, maybe we will get the respect we deserve. I believe we will if Wells' foot is close to
100 percent.
Can anyone really think that a Georgia
team that has almost as many players in trouble as the Bengals really be better
than OSU. I don't think so.
That is
what I think. What do you think?
Bill Smith is a
former coach of several semi-pro teams and has scouted talent. He is a senior writer for http://BrutusReport.com. He has
also published several novels on http://ebooks-library.com/index.cfm and edits http://fryingpanpolitics.blog.com